Azerbaijan's Army Says It Is 'Ready To Fulfill Even The Order Of Destroying' Armenia's Capital City

A second war is looming on the European periphery as long-running
tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have escalated sharply
over the past week, with Azerbaijan's military even warning that
it could strike Armenia's capital.

On August 8, a day after an
epically long Twitter statement in which Azeri President
Ilham Aliyev sabre-rattled against the "Armenian barbarians and
vandals," Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry released a
statement saying it was ready to respond decisively against any
Armenian acts of sabotage.

This came in response to alleged threats issued by the Armenian
minister of defense against Azerbaijan's Mingachevir Dam.

We will restore our territorial integrity either by peaceful or
military means. We are ready for both options.

"Our Armed Forces have any opportunity to strike at all the
military installations of the enemy located in our occupied
regions and Armenia. The Armenian people should know that the
response to any sabotage attempts against Mingachevir Hydro Power
Plant from the Armenian side will be more miserable,” the
statement said.

The Ministry of Defense also warned that Azerbaijan had missiles
targeting Armenia's capital, Yerevan, and cautioned that
Azerbaijan had the capability to raze the city — and that the
army would do so if ordered.

"Our army, targeting Armenia with missiles, is ready to fulfil
even the order of destroying Yerevan," the statement
says.

Armenia is blaming Azerbaijan for the recent uptick in tensions.
Seyran Ohanyan, Armenia's Minister of Defense, has accused
Azerbaijan of violating a ceasefire between the two countries
18,000 times over the past year, but also doesn't think
that war between the two countries is likely.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been in a state of
frozen conflict since 1994, when the two sides signed a
ceasefire agreement after three years of fighting over the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The territory is mostly
ethnic Armenian, but it was included in Soviet Azerbaijan.

Currently the region is a self-declared independent republic
backed with Armenian support.

Just as we have beaten the Armenians on the political and
economic fronts, we are able to defeat them on the battlefield.

Yet Armenia and Russia are stalwart allies. Russia's only
military base in the South Caucasus is
located within Armenia, and the nation is set to join
Russia's Eurasian Customs Union.

In return, Armenia was one of only ten countries to back Russia's
annexation of Crimea at the United Nations.

Despite its close relationship with Armenia, Russia has sought to
play both sides of the conflict. In May, Russia concluded a major arms
sale to Azerbaijan. Russia is also a co-chair, along with France
and the U.S., of the Minsk Group, the diplomatic team that has
sought a negotiated end to the Nagorno-Karabkh conflict.

However much the sabre rattling between the two countries
increases, Thomas de Waal, a South Caucasus expert and
a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Radio Free
Europe/Radio liberty that he doesn't think that the conflict will
escalate into a full-blown war.

Tensions between the two countries generally rise in the
spring and summer only to die down again in the fall and
winter.

“That seems to be a pattern, that in the winter it’s much
quieter when ... everyone sort of just hunkers down in their
trenches,” de Waal
told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “And in the spring and
summer it gets worse."